


octopus puddle

by bribitribbit



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Arguing, F/F, Masturbation, Obedience, arguing n fucking at the same time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:35:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29635425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bribitribbit/pseuds/bribitribbit
Summary: Gideon has never exactly been good at following directions, but she could learn. Probably. She obeys Harrow, pressing herself against the door, and swallows as she watches Harrow settle back down on the bed.--College AU where Gideon and Harrow argue a lot. But also, they kinda like each other?
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 5
Kudos: 65





	octopus puddle

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of friends and I each wrote a fic based off the same prompt and tried to guess who wrote what. Surprise, this one was me! Every single one of the original fics is excellent and [you should read them here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29139117).
> 
> Original prompt: Harrow and Gideon realize, abruptly, that their hatefucking is no longer hatefucking.

Gideon falls back onto the bed, fucked out and still breathing heavy. The ceiling is cracked a little. It’s not the most concerning thing about this dormitory; after all, there is a giant herald corpse where the common room used to be on the first floor. It’s very decorative during parties. Someone always puts a hat on it according to the theme. Jesus, she’s glad she doesn’t live here.

She looks over at Harrow, who is sitting up against the wall, tucked into the corner of the tiny extra-long twin in her sparse and neat room. She also looks fucked out, but the difference is that while the feeling turns Gideon into a kind of octopus-puddle hybrid, Harrow seems ever more prim. 

Gideon rolls her eyes, and says, “You good?”

Harrow glances over at her, and then up at a clock. Who has a clock in their dorm room? Like, a proper analog wall clock? Harrow’s cheeks are pink. One of her perfect, tiny breasts is hanging over her bra, and her nipple is also pink. Gideon looks at it, briefly distracted, and wants it back in her mouth. She’s about to say so, when Harrow finally responds. “I’m good, Nav. Thanks. Get out, I have homework.”

“I know,” says Gideon, too aware of the blissful octopus puddle feeling drifting away in the face of Harrow’s very un-octopus-friendly post-coital behavior. She sits up and nods over at Harrow’s desk, where her notes are spread out. She’d set them out before Harrow had climbed into her lap. “I literally came here to do our homework.” 

“Sure,” says Harrow, unfairly sarcastic for someone who had been the booty caller, not the callee. She climbs out of the bed and picks up her underwear, her jeans. Gideon watches her pull them up one by one over her hips. Wow, she wants to put her mouth there too. There is no end to Places On Harrow Nova’s Body where Gideon is willing to put her mouth. Unfortunately. But Harrow is zipping up her jeans and putting her computer and her notes into a bookbag, clearly planning on heading to the library. 

“You’re a piece of work, Nova,” says Gideon, but she follows Harrow’s lead. Harrow snipes at her the whole time, so clearly irritated, which so thoroughly irritates Gideon, that she doesn’t even notice until she’s halfway across campus that she’d left her notes on Harrow’s desk.

\--

The thing is, Gideon has never had so much sex before in her life. There was the strange and tender blip at sixteen, she and Dulcie hushed and exploratory in inexperienced fits and starts after school; there was what Gideon might call her slutty phase, when she first arrived to college and realized that it didn’t take much after all to get women in bed. But the thrill of that had more or less worn off simply because she never could figure out what it was they liked about her. It was a mystery that bothered her if she spent too much time thinking about it, so she simply avoided the topic altogether.

All of that had been before the first time she’d met Harrow, as part of a group project in a biology class that was very important to Harrow and kind of an easy A for Gideon. They had hit it off -- or tried to murder each other -- and voila. Now Gideon worries a tiny bit her clit might fall off from overuse. It’s fine.

The great thing about Harrow is that Gideon knows more or less where she stands in Harrow’s estimation: not very highly. There is something beautifully enticing about fucking a girl who would just as soon as spit in her face than kiss it, and Harrow is exactly that girl.

So they keep coming together (heh heh) time and again, and have been for nearly four months now. Every time leaves Gideon feeling fully satisfied, but also, always, irritated. Sometimes it’s because Harrow has a tendency to act like all the sex is Gideon’s idea, even though Harrow had made the first move, and clearly has the upper hand; sometimes, it’s just because somehow Harrow knows exactly how to push all her buttons. In bed, this is incredible. Out of it, Gideon wants to throw dirt in her face every so often.

Which doesn’t stop Gideon from texting her again. 

Or sometimes, hours later, when she knows the library is closed, and Harrow is back in her dorm. 

_ G: U up? _

_ H:Yes. Unfortunately. _

_ G: What r u wearing lol _

_ H:Nav, are you fucking kidding me? Are you a frat boy or something? _

_ G: _ _ Nah just kinda horny :) _

_ G: And u said u wanted 2 try 69 _

_ H: Fine. Come over.  _

\--

This is not the first time they’ve fucked more than once in the same day, though usually that happens on weekends, and usually it’s because Gideon was in Harrow’s bed in the morning and fell into bed with her again late that same night. It’s not usually because of two discrete booty calls in the same day, although Gideon holds that  _ she  _ is the only one who sent out an actual “wanna fuck?” text, since Harrow’s literally just said, “I need help on my essay. Meet me in my dorm at 3PM.” At least Gideon is straightforward. At least she is aware of and  _ acknowledges _ how overwhelmingly, constantly horny she is for the most annoying person alive.

She knocks on Harrow’s door precisely ten minutes after Harrow tells her to come over, and it opens almost immediately. Harrow looks small and angry, her arms crossed over her chest, backlit by her desk lamp. Her hair is a mess like she’s been running her hands through it and pulling at the ends. Gideon thinks, I really want to kiss her, and she leans down and does so.

The secret that Harrow would never, ever, not even a little bit,  _ never _ admit, the one that she would refute beyond a shadow of a doubt if Gideon ever called her out on it, is that Harrow always melts a little when Gideon kisses her. Like, when Gideon wraps her arms around Harrow’s shoulders, she can feel the ever-present tension across Harrow’s upper back begin to dissipate. She can tell by the way Harrow always sighs a little bit, or by the way she does this cute little humming noise after a few moments, like she’s actually kind of happy. Gideon isn’t ever going to call her out on it. She thinks she would miss it too much if Harrow stopped.

Thank God there’s no time to interrogate  _ that _ thought, because Harrow moves fast. She kicks the door closed behind Gideon and pushes Gideon so her back is against the cold wooden door. Gideon makes a million jokes about how Harrow is so tiny compared to herself, how Gideon could pick her up between two fingers, mostly to make Harrow mad, but to see them now it would be hard to imagine that  _ Gideon  _ isn’t the one that could be lifted into Harrow’s palm and blown away like so much dandelion fluff. Harrow puts pressure on her arms until she has Gideon’s palms flat against the door, and whispers “Don’t move” into Gideon’s ear before licking a trail down her neck and stepping back.

Gideon raises her eyebrows at Harrow, surprised, and Harrow raises her own eyebrows back, a challenge. She doesn’t break eye contact as she slowly unbuttons her shirt. She isn’t wearing a bra. Gideon’s palms sweat but Harrow is topless in front of her. She isn’t going to do anything that Harrow wouldn’t want her to.

Harrow puts her hands on her hips and just looks at Gideon. It’s the  _ way _ she looks though that has Gideon immediately wanting to grab for her and push her down onto the bed, but she won’t. Not even when Harrow takes a few more steps backward -- unzips her jeans and steps out of them -- sits down on the bed and leans back, totally naked, still staring at Gideon. Her nipples, again, are very pink. Gideon’s mouth waters.

“Oh,” she says, a bit helplessly. 

“You wanted something?” says Harrow, like she wants to start a fight about it, sounding as if she isn’t blushing and suddenly shy, glancing away from Gideon’s face and back again. 

“Yeah,” Gideon croaks. Not for any reason. It’s just, like, Cam always has cigarettes, and Gideon always wants one when she’s drunk. She should probably drink more tea. She clears her throat and says again, tongue feeling drier by the second as she watches Harrow trail her fingers along her stomach, “Yeah, um. Yeah, I wanted -- ”

At that moment, Harrow pinches one of her pink nipples. The sight is  _ extremely  _ distracting, and so is the sound, the exhale catching on a tiny moan, and Gideon loses whatever she had been about to say. It hadn’t been important anyway, had it? The brief moment of shyness from before is gone. Harrow’s gaze is hot and certain; she watches Gideon as her other hand drifts lower, between her legs. 

Gideon pushes herself against the wall, barely even realizing that she’s taking a step towards the bed, and Harrow immediately sits up and frowns. “What are you doing?” she says, and Gideon freezes. 

“Nothing?” she says.

Harrow rolls her eyes. “Get back over there. Don’t  _ move _ ,” she adds, and Gideon has never exactly been  _ good _ at following directions, but she could learn. Probably. She obeys Harrow, pressing herself against the door, and swallows as she watches Harrow settle back down on the bed.

“Now why you couldn’t have just done what I said when I  _ told _ you we had to use APA format,” Harrow says. At first, Gideon doesn’t hear her. She is too distracted by the way Harrow’s fingertips are brushing along the edges of her cunt, the way Gideon can see how wet she’s getting from teasing herself while Gideon watches. Then her brain catches up, and Gideon says, suddenly filled with righteous annoyance, “Wait a minute, it’s not  _ my  _ fault I had a shitty high school teacher who only ever taught us the one style. Like, if you could have just let me email the professor -- ”

“I’m not an amateur,” scoffs Harrow. One of her index fingers circles her clit. Gideon can tell it’s not enough pressure. Not even a little bit. She cannot stop thinking about the way Harrow tastes. 

“No, you’re just a college freshman, you sanctimonious dipshit,” says Gideon, “and you’re allowed to ask the grown-ups for help.” Harrow presses down on her clit and her eyes flutter closed. Gideon licks her lips. If her mouth were on Harrow right now, her chin would already be dripping. “You don’t have to act like you’re defending a dissertation! Fucking  _ Colum _ could’ve aced that essay if he’d written his name backwards, the professor’s a pushover.” 

Harrow’s fingers are rubbing faster, and Gideon’s own fingers itch knowing what it’s like to touch Harrow’s clit -- slippery and silky at once, the hard bud of it. She presses her fingers harder against the door to stop herself from moving towards Harrow, to get her delicious cunt in her mouth.

Harrow has her eyes closed and Gideon focuses in on the way her mouth falls open. She fucking loves this part. It’s when Harrow starts forgetting to hold herself back. When she starts letting out sounds that drive Gideon crazy, and make her press her tongue deeper inside Harrow’s cunt, chasing the gorgeous flavor deep inside. “It’s not a -- ” Harrow sighs here, and Gideon has to bite down on the tip of her tongue, “it’s not about the  _ grade _ . It’s about the principle of the thing.” She punctuates her next sentence by pushing two fingers into herself: “Professionalism.  _ Matters _ .”

Gideon does not actually have an argument against this, because she is watching Harrow’s fingers slide in and out. They’re wet past the knuckle, catching the light from the shitty overhead lamp. She knows she’s just standing there, mouth open, while Harrow arches her back and mutters  _ fuck, _ her throat sticking on the  _ k _ in a way that shouldn’t be that sexy, but kind of makes Gideon feel like a whole other kind of octopus puddle right then and there.

“Harrow,” she says, and then, louder, because Harrow is distracted, “Hey, Empress of the APA Format,” which gets Harrow to flutter her eyes open and stammer out a breathy yet somehow irate “ _ What _ .”

Gideon’s throat is drier than ever, which she can’t blame on Cam now. She can only blame Harrow flushed all over, Harrow moving her fingers in and out, slowly then quickly. She momentarily forgets what she was about to say. “What,” Harrow says again, but she doesn’t sound angry at all, she barely has the breath to push out the vowel, when she flicks her thumb against her clit and just that has her coming all over her own hand. 

Gideon can’t stand it anymore. She wants her mouth right there, she wants to lap it up and get it all over her face. She wants Harrow’s fingers in  _ her _ cunt, she wants Harrow’s mouth along her neck, down to her breasts, down to lick around her own fingers pressing in and out of Gideon. She wants Harrow to tell her that the APA thing doesn’t matter, that she’ll keep Gideon around anyway --

“Get  _ over  _ here,” snaps Harrow, and Gideon obeys. She’s gonna do pretty much anything Harrow says, anyway.


End file.
